The Triumph of the Retro (print version)

[ecosophia]

I was delighted to read in a news story today that one of the more loudly ballyhooed waves of the future has definitely broken and is now rolling back out to sea. E-books, heavily marketed not that many years ago as the inevitable next step in the glorious march of progress that was guaranteed to sweep all before it, peaked three years ago with about 20% of the book market. Since then it's slid back down to about 15%. 

Those numbers are a solid confirmation of something I've been hearing for a while now. Lots of people just plain enjoy books as physical objects, and lots more prefer the experience of reading printer's ink on paper to the experience of reading pixels on a little glass screen. I've heard of several people who got rid of their entire library of printed books in their initial enthusiasm for e-books, only to turn around six months or a year later and start buying the books back again, because once the rush wore off, they missed their books. 

I don't expect e-books to go away forever any time soon -- they'll drop out of use as the technological infrastructure needed to build and use them comes apart, but that's still a ways in the future -- but the old-fashioned book still has plenty of life left in it. I'm particularly pleased to see some small presses concentrating on making books that are a physical pleasure to hold and read -- books that are well designed, gorgeously illustrated, and attractively bound. (Like, ahem, my newly released translation of Giordano Bruno's major handbook on the art of memory, On the Shadows of the Ideas, just out from Miskatonic Press: drop-dead gorgeous doesn't half cover it.) 

In the meantime, I'm going to sit down with an old book and gloat a bit...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I set up the option for USPS to send email updates on the shipment process. I note sourly the package went from Seattle down to LA en route to Toronto, when there are direct flights from Seattle to Toronto!

Anyways, have any occult groups or lodges attempted to create multi-person memory palaces, or attempted binding one to a talisman as off-site backup storage?

[ecosophia]

I've never heard of any such attempt, though it's possible there's been one -- occult lodges don't always publicize their practices, after all! The thing is, the art of memory was one of the branches of occult practice that didn't survive the end of the Renaissance. The occultists at that time, faced with the massive loss of financial support and popular enthusiasm for occultism that came with the triumph of rationalist materialism, had to engage in a massive culling operation, winnowing down their traditions so that they could be passed on intact by the very few who still stayed interested, and the art of memory didn't make the cut. It's only started to find its way back into occult teachings in the last few decades, and -- ahem -- actual innovation, as opposed to ringing predictable changes on a few overfamiliar themes, has actually been very rare in occultism since the Second World War. So if you're planning something of the sort, you could be breaking new ground!

[exalhel]

Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame mentions something called the Linday Effect where things that have been around for a long time will probably continue to be around for a long time, while things that are really new have a good chance of not being around for long. I think books vs ebooks are a good example.

Anyway I hate ebooks. Reading off a screen is uncomfortable for long periods of time, and corporations try to lock you into their specific proprietary device and format and prevent you from actually owning the damn book you already paid for. Books are just so much simpler.

[ecosophia]

Taleb's right, of course. When's the last time you played an eight-track tape? ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

I have a series of books from AGEA Editoria in Spain which researches and prints very rare Iberian historical martial arts treatises. The scholarship is impeccable; the press is artisanal. Each edition is a limited edition with a colophon. For example, Este libro se acabó de imprimir en los talleres que la Cooperativa Gráfica Sacauntos tiene en la ciudad de Compostela, Galiza, el día 14 de Octubre de 2011, aniversario de la Batalla de Hastings. Ejemplar número 100 de 100.

Feel lucky to have it.

[ecosophia]

I have a very few books of the same quality, and find them delightful -- though I'm also happy with the trashy fantasy-fiction paperbacks of my insufficiently misspent youth!

Unsurprising

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who has a kindle, and has read a lot on it, I can't say I am surprised. They are good to read disposable fiction on (the e-ink is truly easy on the eyes like paper) but horrible for any sort of reference book or illustrations. Furthermore, for anyone who takes pleasure in a large book shelf bulging with the real thing, they are obviously disappointing. Also, I can't tell you the number of times I got spelling errors in the kindle edition of a book. I would have presumed they just used the same file the real thing is printed from, but apparently not!

Anyway, I have settled somewhere a little more permanently now and can risk building a real book collection again. Second hand book shops are so cheap, three bookshelves are already full, can I fit another somewhere? :-)

Damo

Re: Unsurprising

[ecosophia]

Hah! My wife and I have the same problem perennially. We have sixteen bookshelves in a two bedroom apartment, and still don't have enough room for all our books (and I bought three more today...)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm one of those who's going back to hardcopy; like you say, they're just nice things to have in your hands. OTOH there are advantages to ebooks, too, like being able to search the text easily. So, for instance, l have both versions of some of your books! I am gradully building up quite a sizeable library of physical books on the occult, druidry and related themes, with always in the back of my mind that these may prove a valuable resource to someone (long) after I'm dead.

On Giordano Bruno: I wonder, apart from translating it, how much use you have made of his system?

[ecosophia]

I've worked with Bruno's methods to some extent. My default for the art of memory is the basic classical system, though, which I learned straight out of Frances Yates' The Art of Memory; when I need to memorize things, and I'm not trying to stretch my boundaries a bit, I just create a memory room or a series of such rooms, and stock them with images in the traditional manner. If I needed to memorize lots of text verbatim, I'd use Bruno's methods, though.

[(Anonymous)]

I definitely prefer a real book in my hands, but also have an e-book reader.

The 'e-ink' screen is so much like reading paper that my eyes are 95% as comfortable as with a real book. (Have you tried one?) When I want to read in bed and not wake my wife, the very gentle light in the front face of the screen (turned down as dim as it will go) is great. So they are certainly a useful device at times. I tend to use the e-book in bed and real books the rest of the time. (This is from someone who works in I.T. and does not have a smartphone).

I'm not at all surprised, though, that we've passed 'Peak E-book'. :-)

I pre-ordered your translation of Giordano Bruno, and was informed a few days ago that it's on its way to me in Australia. I'm eager to handle it. Thank you! :-)

Matt

[(Anonymous)]

Same thing happened in Japan. I was in bookshops there when the e-Book thing was coming around, but it was a temporary fad. Japanese printers tend to produce endurable books. They also smell sweet (I'm not kidding) because of the ink and paper used. Expensive volumes are always printed on acid-free paper. They're hardcover, stitched together, and sold in a thick cardboard box. Academic tomes become collectors items and are continually resold on the used book market.

Every department store and major train station will have a sizeable bookshop too. It is reassuring to see how thriving their book culture remains even when everyone and their dog owns a mobile phone.

-Jeffrey

[ecosophia]

Japan has been a hyperliterate society from way back. I recall reading that during the Tokugawa period, the three big cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo among them had 15,000 bookstores. I'm glad that habit has stuck!

Hurry up, USPS!

[(Anonymous)]

I may get my copy of the Bruno today. Man, is USPS taking its time. Looking forward to it! And under no circumstances would I settle for reading that on a - yech - e-book reader. I have spent literally my whole life loving BOOKS and will die a BOOK lover. - Dewey

Re: Hurry up, USPS!

[ecosophia]

I'm waiting for my author's copies just as eagerly!

[(Anonymous)]

I myself can very well understand the appeal of traditional books. Then there is the fact that digital storage, like storage of e-books, is quite vulnerable to loss, to manipulation or deletion by the corporation which sells the e-book. A good friend of mine particularly loves the smell of books.
Besides, in the context of the decline and fall of Western civilization it has occurred to me a while ago, that instead of being replaced through e-books, books in the traditional sense will probably have a long future ahead of them. In the last 5000 years, books assumed many forms with many materials and many writing systems, out of which they were made, and the same will apply to the future. Due to printing, there will in future non-industrial civilizations be even more books than in non-industrial past civilizations.

From Booklover

[ecosophia]

Exactly. Books are highly durable, and if you've got even a basic printing press -- the wood-block printing used in East Asia since early medieval times is a great example -- you can pretty much count on maintaining literacy and cultural continuity straight through everything history can throw at you. I also love the smell of old books, by the way -- I think of it as the scholar's aphrodisiac.

Is reading an E-book ever really private?

[(Anonymous)]

When we watch the Internet, even e-books provided by the Internet, the Internet is watching us. How would we know if an e-book reader was analyzing our response to the text? Which pages did we dwell on? Which ones did we skim? What conclusions can they draw from that? Who's interested in the results?

Ever since a copyright dispute disabled an e-book version of "1984", we've known that we can never really own an e-book. We're just borrowing it.

de Lathechuck

Re: Is reading an E-book ever really private?

[ecosophia]

Also a good point!

[peristaltor]

One problem with E-Readers in general, I discovered, was that they were formatted to be sales outlets, not true readers, funneling the makers' book buying systems directly to the user. Yes, you can get library books on them, and upload older works whose copyrights have expired; but many, I learned, do not allow readers to excerpt sections for future reference. The excerpted sections last as long as the library check out.

One sales person, working in a store very, very close to the largest university in Washington State, explained they were "readers, not research machines." I countered by pointing up the hill and saying it was comforting that no one "up there" at the university needed a device that could easily excerpt content!

For that reason alone, I never made the plunge, but instead read, note place in book, and type like a fiend to create my own file of text. It's a pain. A well-designed reading machine that can create text files for export would save me a bunch of time, especially on older, public domain titles.

[ecosophia]

I didn't know that, never having tried one. Another good reason not to!

[drhooves]

peristaltor, have you tried the open source app Calibre? It can convert PDF, ebook and kindle formats to text, and then copying and pasting excerpts will be a breeze. There's an additional plug-in required to read the newer kindle format, which (in theory) should work on library loans. I haven't tried that yet. Another technological solution would be voice-to-text apps - they're getting pretty good now.

As for ebooks in general, I'm a fan, having moved 24 times in the last 39 years. For simple text novels, I've found I can read faster on my Kindle, and can adjust the font size - something I now like to do, as the large text versions of hardcopy books are pretty limited. However, beyond simple text, books with images, diagrams and varying font sizes and colors are not good in ereaders, and I find tablets too heavy to hold comfortably for long.

One thing I don't understand is the use of lower paper quality on some books these days - it's almost as bad as the wartime books from the 1940s. Books less than 15 years old are sometimes yellowed and starting to crumble - hardly robust. I imagine some publishers are always trying to squeeze those nickels.

Awkward silence

[degringolade]

One of the things that I will miss about the e-books is the ability to tailor font size for us oldsters.

The other thing is the ability to camouflage your reading habits when (like mine) they veer toward the trashy.

Re: Awkward silence

[ecosophia]

Oh, granted -- large-print editions are only a partial fix, and they do tend to put the title in very large letters, so everyone knows what you're reading.

[neonvincent]

Not everyone is getting the message. In a case of ironic synchronicity, the CEO of the New York Times told CNBC that "Print journalism has maybe another 10 years." On the other hand, he sees a great future for digital journalism. I read that and thought of your depiction of the Toledo Blade in "Retrotopia" publishing print editions decades after 2030. Right after I read that, I read this journal entry showing the trend pointing in the other direction. As I wrote, synchronicity.

[ecosophia]

The CEO of the New York Times is right that the New York Times' style of print journalism is not long for this world, but that doesn't mean that print journalism in general is doomed. It means that serenely self-referential and self-glorifying print journalism gyroscopically focused on the interests of a privileged caste in terminal decline is doomed -- along with the social caste that reads it. I suspect that right now, if somebody were to start a print weekly of the old-fashioned variety that aimed at the actual interests and opinions of the flyover-state population, they'd cover their costs with subscriptions and local advertising alone.

print journalism

[(Anonymous)]

Heard a talk by a local newspaper editorial cartoonist a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that the paper he works at (the Sacramento Bee) used to get 75% of it revenues from classified advertisement. Craigs List et. al. have killed that business, display ads have taken up some of the slack, but subscribers drop off. My mom subscribed for some years, but delivery was unreliable. We have one of those dedicated tubes on the mailbox but the carrier would still drop it in the driveway. And the paper just keeps getting thinner, just doesn't seem worth it, especially if you have no interest in the sports section.
Specialty weeklys like the San Francisco Bay Guardian that cover local issues in depth, usually from a progressive point of view and have local film and concert listings and neighborhood papers that feature the church clam bake and school sports scores seem to be hanging in, as it is still handy to grab a free paper to look up the movie times and music clubs ads.
And there are still people who don't feel informed unless they have read the Washington Post or the New York Times.

Rita Rippetoe

[(Anonymous)]

I hope that the old-fashioned bookstore will make a resurgence along with the old-fashioned book. Our local bookstore just closed. It was a sad day.

David, by the lake

[ecosophia]

It's already happening in some places, and the big-box bookstores are in deep trouble (along with the rest of the retail sector). The thing that has to happen, though, is a resetting of commercial real estate values down to a level that makes any kind of economic sense. Right now rents for bookstore spaces are absurdly high, because investors in the real estate market have driven rents up to levels that the retail economy can no longer support. Once that changes, and it will, local bookstores will be viable again.

retail rents

[(Anonymous)]

I think another part of the problem is tax codes that make it possible to use losses on vacant retail space to offset profits in some other business. So even when there are rows of vacant shops one sees another strip mall going up down the street. OTH space in already failing malls may be ridiculously cheap. At one point there was an auto dealership in the K Street Mall in Sacramento, and that can't be an economic proposition given the space that autos require for display. That part has been torn down and a sports arena built, but the mall had been dying for some time. Couldn't pull in suburban shoppers and not enough housing nearby to furnish customers. Now my local mall has things like the "as Seen on TV" store, eyebrow threading parlors, deeply discounted clothing stores and a lot of vacant space. A big, highly touted mall in nearby Folsom was stalled by the 2008 crash and has yet to be completed to the original plans. Nordstrom was to have been the anchor store and was canceled. Lots of empty spaces thinly disguised.

Rita Rippetoe

Books

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, it’s Fuzzy. Since this a nature site, I decided to use a name honoring the best dog ever. She listened to the TV—not watched, as a fair number of dogs do, but pressed her ear against the speaker. (When my mom was listening while in the kitchen and the volume suddenly dropped, she’d yell, “Fuzzy, get away from the TV!”). She fetched the paper and held it hostage till she got a goodie. She listened to a little girl ‘s secrets and never betrayed a one.

Onward to the actual subject. Real books are great, but Kindle’s a godsend to
Those with limited shelf space!

Techno Sweets

[(Anonymous)]

What are those beehive-shaped things scattered about like throw pillows around the frame of the press in the image you selected? I tried to net-search and came up with a big round nada. They do not look like ink-balls since they have no handles. BTW ink-balls were made of dogskin leather because it has no pores. I learned a good deal about the massive techo-suite associated with the press. Composition ink rollers were made of glue plus molasses, proto-plastic polymers...

Re: Techno Sweets

[(Anonymous)]

The image of the old printing press is quite incompetently drawn, clearly the work of someone who didn't understand how such a press was worked in actual practice. The handle on the screw to drive down the press is way too short for effectve printing, and the mechanism to slide the tray of set type in and out is completely missing from the picture, as is the other mechanism to hold the paper or vellum in place while pressure is applied. So the beehive shaped things could have been meant for anything. The one on the press is probably meant to be an ink-ball; the ones on the floor are more likely to have been meant to be ink bottles. -- Robert Mathiesen

Re: Techno Sweets

[ecosophia]

Robert, fascinating. Do you use a printing press?

Re: Techno Sweets

[(Anonymous)]

I have used one long ago, JMG, and printed a little from moveable type that I had set myself. We had print shop in my Junior High School in Berkeley (along with Wood Shop, Metal Shop znd Mechanical Drawing). But also I spend about ten years of my academic career teaching undergraduates to do hands-on work with medieval manuscripts and the earliest printed books (incunabula), using Brown's collections of those sort of materials. So I became very well acquainted with the books that Gutenberg printed and the design of the press that he and other early printers used. For what it's worth, the main branch of the Providence Public Library has the Updike Collection on hand-printing, which includes a number of actual presses and (IIRC) cases of moveable type. And there's a printshop at the South County Museum in Rhode Island where anyone can learn to print with moveable type. (I presume it's still offering classs, though I haven't looked recently.) -- Robert Mathiesen

Re: Techno Sweets

[m_hodgson]

I did a bit of printing in my youth and the beehive shaped things have now piqued my interest. They don't seem to relate to that press at all. After some searching I found a picture of a Treadwell's wooden-frame bed and platen power press, which uses weights that look similar. Maybe the person who drew that image was a bit confused.

http://exhibits.library.jhu.edu/files/original/14f4f8432f2a53156301bc064d622aaa.jpg

On the Shadows of the Ideas paperback

[(Anonymous)]

On the Shadows of the Ideas looks absolutely gorgeous. Sadly, as a European student it is out of my price range - the shipping is as much as the book itself!

Will it also be published in paperback eventually?

- Brigyn

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I've noticed on the train a big rise in people with books again. I used to see people reading a lot on the train, with actual books, several years ago. One nice thing about them is that you can see the covers and get a sense of the popularity of some things, some times even people would stop quickly to talk about how much they loved a book with a stranger. Then it switched to e-readers in a big way and I never saw anyone with books. Then maybe after a year or two I started to see people reading on their tablets or phones (at least that is what I think happened, it was harder to tell at a glance, but I'd see screens of text with no pictures so that was what my impression was). Then it seemed like people were just texting or playing tile flipping type video games on their phones for a while, but occasionally I would see somebody reading some real classic in book form, like Moby Dick or something. Now I see books often again, not quite at it's peak but getting closer.

Personally I stayed with physical books the whole time but I'm happy to see the change. I thought the loss of the social/cultural things around reading (the things you can subtract from the experience without obviously seeming to lose anything in the switch from books to e-readers) was a bit sad but I think a lot of people probably felt some of that themselves too. My other thinking is that their e-readers just stopped working, haha.

Thanks,
Johnny